3-070-904 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The late Mr. J. J. Mechi, of Tiptree Hall, Essex, 1881. Former Alderman of the City of London and '...an active tradesman and an enthusiastic agriculturist...He was enabled, about the year 1827, to set up on his own account in a small shop in Leadenhall-street. In the course of a few years he realised a handsome fortune by the "magic razor-strop" which bears his name, and established a large retail cutlery business in the City and Regent-street. In 1840, having attentively studied the defects of English farming, he resolved to try his hand on improvements in agriculture. He bought a small farm...and here carried out his system of deep drainage, liquid manure, steam ploughing, and other methods of cultivation, so that his model farm was brought into a state of productiveness which annually yielded a profit...Mr. Mechi was for many years a member of the Council of the Society of Arts, and was a juror in the Department of Art and Science at the Great Exhibition of 1851, and at the Industrial Exhibition at Paris in 1854...In 1858 he published an account of his improved agricultural system...under the title of "How to Farm Profitably." Mr. Mechi was a magistrate for Middlesex and a Commissioner of Lieutenancy for the City of London'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.